While concepts of Earth have a rich tradition, more recent examples show a distinct quality: Though ideas of wholeness might still be related to mythical, religious, or utopian visions of the past, "Earth" itself has become available as a whole. This...
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While concepts of Earth have a rich tradition, more recent examples show a distinct quality: Though ideas of wholeness might still be related to mythical, religious, or utopian visions of the past, "Earth" itself has become available as a whole. This raises several questions: How are the notions of one Earth or our Planet imagined and distributed? What is the role of cultural imagination and practices of signification in the imagination of "the Earth"? Which theoretical models can be used or need to be developed to describe processes of imagining Planet Earth? This collection invites a wide range of perspectives from different fields of the Humanities to explore the means of imagining Earth.
Frontmatter -- -- Contents -- -- Introduction. Visions of the »Blue Marble«. Technology, Philosophy, Fiction -- -- Mathematical Images of Planet Earth -- -- Google Earth. Satellite Images and the Appropriation of the Divine Perspective -- -- Mediating Gaia. Literature, Space, and Cybernetics in the Dissemination of Gaia Discourse -- -- Why Ecological Awareness is Loopy -- -- »Again, the Earth (which ever I held in mine eye) did as it were mask it selfe with a kind of brightness like another Moone.« Inventing ›Blue Marble‹ in 17th century literature and astronomy -- -- »earth’s slow turning into the dark« Global Networks of Decay in W.G. Sebalds The Rings of Saturn -- -- A Whole Earth Monument. Planetary Mediation in Dietmar Dath’s The Abolition of Species -- -- Contributors
